The 8-second rule that Carrie Bickmore says could be the key to a happy relationship.

The Projecthost Carrie Bickmore and her partner Chris Walker have been in love for six years, but every happy couple needs some fine-tuning.

Especially as they head into the challenging new baby period when their second child together arrives later this year.

That’s why the couple has been trying to come up with ways to stay connected through this “hell-like” period – and Carrie thinks she’s on to something.

“We’ve been talking heaps lately, Chris and I – we’ve got a new baby coming – about little moments we can grab together to keep us connected,” the 37-year-old told her radio co-host Tommy Little on air on Thursday.

“Because you can spend years and years and you just realised you haven’t been feeling connected and then your kids leave home and you’re like ‘who the hell are you?'”

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As she explained, it’s usually her coming up with the ideas, but this one came from Chris and three days in, they’re big fans.

“Chris said to me the other day, ‘I was talking to this guy at work and he is reading a lot of relationship books. He was telling me this great tip I think we should try.’ It keeps the romance alive and it means you start the day connected,” she said onHit FM’s Carrie and Tommy show.

Basically, each morning as you give your partner a quick peck goodbye, you instead hold that kiss on the lips for eight seconds – which doesn’t sound like long until you try it for yourself, Carrie said.

Their three-year-old daughter Evie was taken aback by the kiss.

“The first day we did it [daughter] Evie looked at us like we had two heads.

“And then later when we were walking to school she said, ‘Are you and daddy friends?’,” Carrie said, laughing.

“I said, ‘why do you ask?’ and she said, ‘oh cos you kissed today.'”

Apart from that being a teaching moment for Carrie to explain to her daughter that you don’t kiss friends like that, she also took it as a “sign” they should continue with it.

Carrie and Chris are expecting their second child together after announcing Carrie’s pregnancy in June. They’re also raising Carrie’s 11-year-old son Oliver together, whose father Greg Lange died from brain cancer in 2010.

The couple announced their exciting news on Instagram with a cute video of them telling Oliver and Evie, who asked if it was twins – which Carrie confirmed it isn’t.

Carrie Bickmore managed to hide her pregnancy from viewers until she was ready to share the news: